Bok
Bok
Collaboration with Kristen Roos
Year: 2024
Dimensions: 3840 x 2160 px
Medium: Audiovisual
Status: Completed
Bok is a low-resolution synesthetic study rendered in two colors.
Created in collaboration with composer Kristen Roos, the film translates his composition of the same name into pixel-based animation. The piece begins with simple geometric shapes that map foundational musical elements, then as the track develops, new visual intrusions parallel the arrival of gritty synths and complex rhythmic layers, pushing the composition toward a dynamic crescendo.
The work draws on early visual music traditions and the aesthetics of primitive computer graphics. Its sharp pixels and deliberate low-resolution constraints form a visual language that echoes the track’s reference to 1987 MIDI sequencing software UpBeat: The Intelligent Rhythm Sequencer.
Bok extends Safa's ongoing investigation into pixel-based abstraction, merging historical visual music influences with contemporary digital processes to construct visual narratives that respond directly to sound.
The result of several years of research, experimentation and creation, Universal Synthesizer Interface is Kristen’s media archaeological project that explores a largely unknown era of intelligent and algorithmic music software from the mid 1980’s into the early 1990’s. The music for this film was created out of this research, using an obscure midi sequencer called UpBeat: The Intelligent Rhythm Sequencer, released by Intelligent Music Computer Systems in 1987. Hailed by reviewers of the time as ‘the world’s best drum machine.'
This project is funded in part by FACTOR, the Government of Canada and Canada’s private radio broadcasters.